1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information handling systems and more particularly to intelligent boot services for use with information handing systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
It is known to provide information handling systems with a basic input output system (BIOS) which recognizes and controls various aspects of the information handling system. BIOS refers to the firmware code executes when the information handling system is first powered on. One function of the BIOS is to prepare the information handling system for other software programs to load, execute, and assume control of the information handling system. This process is referred to as booting up the information handling system.
One issue relating to information handling system can occur while the information handling system is booting up. With known information handling systems, during a boot operation, customers can be presented with a one strike and out BIOS behavior for booting to an installed operating system. If a preferred device boot order is incorrect, known information handling systems do not provide guidance to remediate this issue. Being removed from the BIOS booting sequence can require a customer to have a technical understanding of ‘Boot Sequence’, Master Boot Records (MBR), Partition Boot Records (PBR), and other boot-related details to begin to resolve this issue. An inability to boot can be caused by a plurality of events including viruses, human error, disk signature corruption or MBR corruption.
With known information handling systems, many calls related to unbootable systems are due to a corruption of the path leading to the operating system bootstrap file. A corruption of this path can include issues relating to the BIOS device boot order configuration, the master boot record, and the bootstrap configuration file (e.g. boot.ini, grub.conf, etc.).
Service calls relating to unbootable systems can be difficult to understand, troubleshoot and resolve. Many unbootable system scenarios can require deep technical expertise and the appropriate tools. In a remote service delivery model, unbootable system scenarios can result in unnecessary dispatches, extended time on task, and potentially negative customer experience. There are no known solutions focused on preventing catastrophic events from happening on a customers system and autocorrecting them before the catastrophic event leads to other serious issues.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an information handling system with an intelligent boot service which can address and resolve unbootable system scenarios.